Hydrophilic Babies

Today, I offer a quick story. I plan to use this story if my kids decide to get married and especially have children before about 25-30 years old. Below, I give you the reasoning behind this statement: I was much too young (23) to be a parent when our son was born.

In the summer after the birth of my son (in January) Misty and I attended a swimming party with the Youth Group of the church we attended. At the time, the church was without a Youth Minister, and I helped out with the group when needed.

While in the pool, I grabbed The Boy and carried him around dipping him into the water from time to time. Never more than chest deep. He loved it. Each dip brought a huge guffaw followed by a round of giggles.

Somewhere in my past I’d seen or heard something about teaching children to love the water early. One of the things I remember hearing/reading was that if you submerge an infant, they will instinctually hold their breath. Not only that, but they would love the feeling. Do this often during infancy and the child will grow up a water-ophile.

Or maybe I learned it from a Nirvana album cover?

I decided this was a good idea. I took my little 5-6 month old boy and completely submerged him in the pool water. He did not seem to love it. I held him submerged for a few seconds expecting his hydrophilic instincts to take over at any moment. They did not. He kicked and flailed underwater.

Finally I brought him to the surface. He immediately began to gasp for breath. He coughed. He spit pool water from his mouth.

I just stared in horror. Convinced that I’d almost drowned our baby.

Misty and I decided dunking him was a bad idea. She also decided that I was an idiot and forbid me to ever again read articles or watch TV shows about parenting. She did however allow me to keep The Boy in the pool.

Despite “The Dip” as the incident came to be known (I never knew if “dip” referred to the act of dunking the baby or to me,) The Boy continued to enjoy his time in the pool. I held him tightly to my chest and walked backward in the shallow end of the pool. I crouched down to bring the water level to our shoulders. He loved it.

For the next part of the story I need to describe the pool in which we swam. The pool was a typical of most home pools in that it was 3 feet deep on one end and about 8 feet deep on the other. It was a concrete, in-ground pool with a vinyl liner. The liner was, to me, unusually slick.

Another extraordinary characteristic of the pool was the transition from shallow to deep. In most pools this transition is a somewhat gradual slope: 45º perhaps. The transition in this pool can only be characterized as drastic. I imagine the angle was more like 70º.

Slick liner, steep drop off. Do you see where this story is going?

We continued to circle the shallow end bobbing up and down from shoulder deep to waist deep. Suddenly, as I stepped back, the bottom of the pool fell away. My foot found the bottom, but it angled down in a steep decline. My foot began to slide down the slope. Then my other foot, which I did not realize was close to the drop off, slipped down the slope as well.

I began to frantically run up the decline. At least, I tried to run. My feet slipped further and further down. The water level grew higher and higher. I tried to call out to Misty. I didn’t have enough breath to shout, so she did not hear me. Then my head went under water.

As I slipped, I raised The Boy up to keep him out of the water. Now I found myself submerged vertically arms fully extended with a baby held just above the surface. My feet searched frantically for the pool’s bottom. I began to sink and found the bottom. I used the floor to bounce myself upward. As my eyes broke the surface, I expected to find a flourish of activity. I soon realized no one saw what happened or heard my cry.

It was up to me to keep my baby from drowning. My earlier bounce had brought my mouth out of the water enough for me to catch a deep breath. It also pushed me further into the deep end of the pool. I could not bounce again without submerging The Boy. After “The Dip” I would not do that again.

I turned my body, which until then still faced the shallow end of the pool, toward the nearest side of the pool. It also happened to be the side with the most people. I began to kick my feet while trying to keep my extended body vertical and The Boy above the water.

I kicked furiously. We moved slowly. Very slowly. I couldn’t tell how close we were to the side (we’d been in the middle of the pool,) but we did not seem close at all. I let the air out of my lungs. I continued kicking, trying desperately to reach the side of the pool, or at the least keep The Boy above water until someone saw him.

My plan was to get to the side and sit him on the sidewalk. The plan seemed futile. I opened my eyes. The blurry side of the pool seemed miles away. My lungs began to scream for air. I continued to kick.

My chest began to burn almost beyond my ability to cope. My brain began to send urgent messages to my diaphragm, mouth, and lungs: “We need oxygen!” I fought the involuntary impulse to breathe as long as I could.

I had to breathe. My body could not do anything more without oxygen. My legs ceased their kicking. My elbows buckled slightly. I began to sink. As I sank, my feet found purchase on the bottom of the pool just before The Boy’s face went under water. Using my last bit of energy, I sprang up slightly.

As I raised my baby a little higher in the air, I felt him plucked from my hands. Someone saw us. I reached up and found the side of the pool with my now free hands. I pulled myself to the surface, and saw my little boy safe in the arms of one of the teenagers.

Finally, I breathed.

Feel free to use this story to discourage your offspring from reproducing too early. Or if you just want them to be deathly afraid of the baby/pool combination.